Sukrismini: Passionate batik-making teacher

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 05/10/2007 7:32 AM  |  Life

T. Sima Gunawan, Contributor, Jakarta

Every weekend, when most people are having fun with friends and family, Sukrismini is busy working.

Sunday is her busiest day as more people come to her workplace at the Textile Museum on Jl. KS Tubun in Petamburan, West Jakarta, where she teaches the art of making batik using wax and dye.

Last Sunday (May 6), about 10 people including a 5-year-old Indian girl, a middle-aged woman and a young man, learned how to make batik on pieces of cloth or on T-shirts. They sat together in the pavilion at the back of the museum's main gallery, carefully applying the wax.

The batik course, along with courses of fabric painting, T-shirt painting, beading and painting using shredded cloth, is offered by the museum in a bid to attract more visitors.

The museum, with Dutch architecture, has a collection of batik cloths and traditional fabric and outfits from various parts of the country. The entrance fee is Rp 2,000 (about 23 U.S. cents) for adults, Rp 1,000 for students and Rp 600 for children. But, like other museums in the country, it has few visitors as people prefer to go to the zoo or to sprawling shopping malls in the capital.

""The current condition is actually not bad. Groups of students or tourists often come here to look around and learn how to make batik,"" said Kris, as the 45-year-old woman is affectionately called.

She said many expatriate students, particularly Japanese and South Koreans, came to the museum.

""One of the Japanese students has opened a batik course in her home country,"" she added proudly.

Batik is known to be more than a millennium old, probably originating in ancient Egypt or Sumeria, according to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. In Indonesia, batik dates back to the 18th century and is found in different parts of the country, particularly Java cities like Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Cirebon and Pekalongan.

Expertise in making traditional batik is usually passed from generation to generation. In the case of Kris, however, she learned it at a Craft High School in Yogyakarta. She used to make her own batik and sell it to buyers in Surakarta, about 60 kilometers away.

After finishing high school, she wanted to continue her studies at the Teachers' Training Institute (IKIP) but it turned out that it did not have a batik department. However, she did end up teaching batik at the institute for a year. She taught batik for another year at the Institute of the Arts before moving to Jakarta in 1984, where she was offered a job as a cashier at a department store in Melawai, South Jakarta.

In 1987, Kris started to work at the museum, initially twice a week. She demonstrated the art of making batik on the porch of the main building in an effort to attract visitors.

""When it rained, sometimes I got wet. But I had to do it in order to draw people's attention,"" she said.

The efforts were fruitful and some visitors began showing an interest in making their batik. That was when the museum asked her to work full time.

""At first my boss (at the department store) did not let me go, saying, `What's the point in working at a museum that does not have many visitors'. But that's the challenge. I was asked to work there for that reason,"" Kris said.

She enjoys teaching batik and she has small pictures of some of her students, mostly women, including First Lady Kristiani Yudhoyono and former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, attached to the wall behind her modest counter.

Kris also offers batik courses to individuals and groups. She said some employees of a foreign bank in Jakarta learn batik making after office hours as they wait for the end of the three-in-one period -- a policy requiring motorists who want to drive on the city's main thoroughfares during rush hours to have at least three people in a car.

""After working the whole day, they are still enthusiastic about taking the course for an hour and a half. It's amazing,"" she said.

As a batik artist, she has demonstrated her skills and exhibited her works in several foreign countries, including China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Netherlands. She brought all of the materials to make the batik from Indonesia, except the kerosene to fuel the stove. Whenever possible, like other traditional batik artists, she use a kerosene stove to melt the wax.

""I could do it in China and Vietnam as kerosene was available in the market. But in the Netherlands, I used a gas stove,"" she said.

Kris says she is pleased that more people, both foreigners and locals, are showing more appreciation for batik. This, she says, indicates that her hard work is not in vain.

The Textile Museum, where one weekend last month was dripping in one of the rooms in the spacious main gallery -- probably from the poor air-conditioning system, is managed by the Jakarta Culture and Museums Agency.

She said her salary is not much, but she does not complain because her husband runs his own business and is doing well. And for her, the satisfaction in teaching and making batik is more important than money.

However, 20 years into her batik course, Kris still harbors one humble dream ... to become a civil servant.

""Every year I renew my application, asking the government to appoint me as a civil servant. Every year they tell me that they will give me a call. But what I get is empty promises,"" said Kris.

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